these childhood delights
by anglaland
Summary: Jamie sticks his tongue out at him. "It's not the grass that's interesting," he insists. "But what's in it. And today, me and you are going to discover the newest species!"


Written for beevolution on tumblr, for the Hetalia Writers Discord Secret Spectres event, the requested prompt "human AU, a scenario where one tries to impress the other by doing something cool and actually succeeding."

Inspired by the brief mention of the two in Shachaai's fic "Queen of the Golden River". I've borrowed their human names.

Jamie – Australia  
Christopher – New Zealand

* * *

Christopher can feel the summer sun scraping its fingers against the back of his neck. Nevertheless, he trudges behind his brother, Jamie, who has run up farther than Christopher feels like moving at the moment.

"Kit!" Jamie calls, voice carrying across the open field. "You're too slow! Hurry up!" Christopher wants to shout back _You need to slow down!_ but he's

Certain that Jamie would somehow not hear him

Jamie would run ahead anyway and only laugh when Christopher finally caught up.

But crisping in the sun beats having to behave at home, so he jogs ahead to reach his brother.

It'd been about six weeks since they'd seen each other, Christopher having been away at a skills camp in New Zealand. The luscious, _much cooler_ valley the camp sat within was a stark contrast to the Australia country home in which he lived. Already, he finds himself wishing of a way to return (and a way to bring Jamie along with him). But for now, he'll enjoy the company of his best friend.

Predictably, Jamie is grinning madly when Christopher comes to his side. "New Zealand's left you dull," he taunts.

"At least there's things to look at there," he shoots back. "We started with grass and…oh look." He gestures sarcastically to the acres of grassland around them. "More grass. Riveting. I can already feel my IQ growing."

Jamie sticks his tongue out at him. "It's not the _grass_ that's interesting," he insists. "But what's _in_ it. And today, me and you are going to discover the newest species!"

"Of course," Christopher deadpans, but they've been playing this game since they've learned to walk, and so they move forward together anyway. Jamie stops every now and then to prod at beetles or spiders, occasionally lifting some horror concoction the size of his palm, guessing at what it could be. Christopher raises his eyebrows at the right moments and says "wow" when needed, and the sun slowly makes its way down from its peak behind them.

It wasn't that the creatures in their home grasslands were boring, it's just that...alright, they were boring. And dangerous. Wildlife _in general_ wasn't boring, because Christopher had been fascinated at the life brimming around him at camp, experience from Jamie's adventures enabling him to learn the secrets of New Zealand's creatures. But there was something in him that just didn't "click" here, at home.

(He'd never tell Jamie that though, not when Jamie excitedly picks out nature encyclopedias and their legs tangle together in the evening, eyes flipping through multi colored pages of the different ways their backyard could kill them.)

Some (much) time later, Christopher concedes that even his desire to avoid reading the bible at home wasn't strong enough to keep moving. "Hey Jamie," he says. Jamie is excitedly lifting the legs of some kind of rodent. "Jamie!"

"Huh?" Jamie says.

"I'm going to go explore over there for a bit. You can, uh...stay here."

"Uh huh," his brother replies with love and interest.

Christopher rolls his eyes and makes his way towards their home, hoping to slowly lure Jamie back at some point. The grass around them barely comes up to their hips, so he has no fear of losing his over-excited brother.

He ends up flopping on the ground, too tired and sunburned to think about what disgrace of God would come crawling out to kill him. After a few minutes he belatedly opens his eyes to see a dirt colored snake a meter away from him.

The creature lays docile in the sun. _Probably napping_ , Christopher thinks in envy. It's smaller than some of the gargantuan snakes he's seen on T.V., with none of the bright colors or stripes hinting at fatality.

 _I should show Jamie_ , he thinks, and then immediately wonders if he's suffering from heat stroke. Why would he pick up a snake? But evidently, the heat is afflicting him, because the longer he thinks about it, the more appealing the idea becomes.

With a sigh, he lifts himself to his knees. There's not many proper-sized snake carrying sticks around, but he manages to find a decently sized one. With another sigh, he stands up. "Jamie!" he yells.

He can see his brother still fascinated by the same rodent, and still not responding. In frustration, Christopher yells his name again, but Jamie doesn't react.

An irrational urge overtakes Christopher. His dumb brother is playing around with overgrown mice, but snakes _eat_ mice. Maybe Jamie will finally concede that Christopher is, in fact, the complete opposite of dull, and very cool thank you, once he sees this snake.

Sees this snake _wrapped around_ Christopher.

He doesn't think long enough about the implications to talk himself out of it. Gingerly, he takes the stick and slips it under the snake's head. It begins to slither forward, and Christopher quickly lifts it up, draping the tail end over his left arm while his right keeps the head as far away as possible.

"I've got a snake!" he shouts with all his might, feeling thankful that snakes have no ears. At the word _snake_ , Jamie's head whips around, finally acknowledging his younger brother.

Christopher feels a rush of relief when he sees Jamie run towards him, because he's not sure how much longer his bravery can last with the snake's slippery scales sliding across his arms. "Pretty cool, huh?" Christopher says, affecting nonchalance. "Way cooler than a spider."

Abruptly, Jamie stops a few meters away from Christopher. "Kit," he begins, but his sentences choke off as his face goes white. "Kit, that's an _Eastern Brown Snake_. It's one of the most poisonous ones we have!"

Christopher's face drains of color. He's frozen in place with a natural killer in his hands. While he feebly tries to restart his brain, Jamie keeps talking. "That's...that's amazing," he says, and Christopher's brain fails again. "How did you get to pick it up?! They're supposed to be super fast and and angry and...wow." Jamie's voice trails off. "You're actually _holding one in your hands._ "

Christopher thinks back to the sleepy snake he had picked up, and does not question why it didn't murder him on the spot. Instead, he slowly tips the stick forwards towards the ground, enabling the killing machine on him to slither back to Earth. Once the snake is off of him, he runs around it to Jamie, feeling like his heart will burst out of his rib cage.

Jamie looks to where Christopher dropped the snake, and makes an aborted attempt to walk towards it, before Christopher catches his hand. "It's too dangerous," he says, hoping that his voice doesn't sound like it's coming out of a grain mill. "Let's just head back home."

Jamie looks back at his brother, but surprisingly, it's in...wonder and admiration? Christopher feels a rush of success wrap around him, validating his actions. Jamie nods in acquiescence, and they make their way back to the house.

Their walk back begins in shocked silence, and then Jamie begins to slowly murmur "That was so cool," eventually narrating what had happened into "And I saw the snake hissing, and you were just holding it, totally calm!" Christopher doesn't say much throughout, except to shush his brother so their parents can't hear. When they go to bed, he can't fall asleep for hours, reliving Jamie's words and trying to keeps his face from smiling.

* * *

 _Years later_

Matthew humors him as they walk around the _very_ well detailed exhibit of Australian wildlife. Jamie had fucked off God knows where (well, he was actually shackled to his afternoon shift, but no need to get specific), and so Christopher had jumped on the opportunity to dissuade Matthew from joining his brother's 'explorations'.

"And here's the Eastern Brown Snake," he says drolly. "As always, extremely venomous, avoid at all costs –– unless you were a younger me."

"Don't tell me you got bit!" Matthew exclaims, peering into the exhibit with renewed interest.

"I walked away a free man," Christopher says. Or alright, brags, but it was _impressive_ and maybe he wanted to impress Matthew. "Ask Jamie, he'll tell you all about it. Ever since that day, I've run a snake charmer business on the side."

Matthew laughs. "After this exhibit, I'll need to keep your number on speed dial." He turns away from Christopher, looking back at the snake. "Think you can charm this one to start moving?"

Christopher turns to look at the snake himself, and the smart quip he had ready on his tongue dies in its place. _This was not the same snake._ The reptile in front of him _looked_ similar to the snake he had picked up all that time ago, but it was almost certainly, _not the same._

Jamie hadn't come close to him that day, terrified of the "venomous snake" Kit had held in his arms. The sun had been setting on their backs, probably casting Christopher and the snake in shadow.

 _Jamie didn't know._

His mouth goes dry, and he thinks of all the people Jamie's bragged to over the years of Christopher's natural instinct for dangerous snakes. His brother had never once teased him again for his ambivalence towards Australian wildlife.

Well...there was no need to dissuade that now. And certainly not when his brother's eyes still lit up in excitement when he recanted the tale.

"Maybe not," he finally says to Matthew. "Let's stick to the safer parts of life."


End file.
